Power utilities told to set up user’s index

KOLKATA: The Union power ministry has asked all power utilities to set up a customer reliability index. It would depict the consumer’s perception of the utilities’ performance in providing quality power and might ultimately be linked to financial assistance in the power sector.
The latest move by the power ministry is aimed at enhancing the effic-neicy of power utilities.The move primarily targets the distribution agencies, distribution being the cornerstone of the power sector reforms. “Generating stations have indexes like plant load factor to indicate their efficiency. But till date, there has been no index to gauge the efficiency of the distribution sector,� a senior state power department official told TNN.
“Reliability of power supply is of utmost importance to the consumers and is an index of monitoring the health of the distribution system from the customer viewpoint. It is, therefore, considered imperative to gauge customer satisfaction in terms of reliability of supply of power,� a letter to the state power department from Central Electricity Authority chair-man H.L. Bajaj stated.
The proposed index would convey “the reliability of supply of power�, and would be used as a benchmark for assessing the performance of the distribution system, the letter stated. The index would “take into consid-eration the extent of outages and number of interruptions occurring in the system�. Outages refer to the extent of interruptions in power supply.
The index would be calculated at monthly intervals. For state capitals, the move would come into immediate effect, as the index is to be calcu-lated from July. For major towns with populations less than one million, the index would be effected from December this year, and would encom-pass all district headquarters from March next year.
The index would also be an indirect indicator of how much financial as-sistance the utilities would be getting for their projects. Under the recently announced norms of the Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme, 50 per cent of the funds annually earmarked for a state would be given on the basis of the increase in efficiency shown by the utilities. “As the index would be a measure of the utilities’ efficiency, the index would have a bearing on the disbursal of funds,� the official said.
The move would be an additional burden for the beleaguered West Ben-gal State Electricity Board, as quality of power is one of is main prob-lems due to heavy transmission and distribution losses. With T&D losses at close to 40 per cent, the WBSEB may find it difficult to get the funds necessary for improving its system, state power department officials felt.